Oak Hills Local (Hamilton) works to incorporate 21st century learning Bryan Bullock, OSBA communication coordinator Light is pouring in the long windows in Kara Farquhar’s classroom and students are gathered in small groups around tables. The students are transfixed on the laptops and touch-screen devices they’re using to simultaneously collaborate on Web-based projects. They ...
I’ve met many superintendents who really want to streamline costs and administrative workflow specifically in the area of paperless board meetings. But at the end of the day, many of them tell me. You don’t understand. My board is not ready to go paperless. I feel your pain. And I’ve heard about many strategies that ...
When disaster strikes…what happens to your school system’s information and records? Recent years have included multiple natural disasters from tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, lightning strikes that burn schools to many, many more. Just how safe are your records and other important information if such an occurrence happens in your district? That’s where cloud technology comes into ...
Last February, Dr. Claire Miller, shared the story of how her district, Barrow County School System, prepared for District Accreditation. This blog is an attempt to document the steps she outlined in her presentation which I think will be very useful for other school districts who have accreditation work looming! Her school district used eBOARD*’s ...
The eBOARDsolutions 2012 User Conference was held in late February in Atlanta, Georgia. Almost 200 eBOARD users gathered for a day of learning with and from their colleagues about how to take full advantage of the web-based suite of software tools that they have implemented for managing and aligning the work of their school districts. ...
Have any of the teachers in your school systems tried flipping their classrooms yet? Have you heard about it and what the advantages might be? As you know, new content is “typically” delivered to all students at the same time by their teacher. Some call this “sage on the stage”, presentations (with or without PowerPoint), ...
Local school boards meet all around this country in governing our nation’s public schools. Who makes the agenda? In my home state of Georgia, the superintendent and board chair have the responsibility of creating the monthly agenda; each member of the board can additionally request that an item be placed on the agenda. What’s put ...
Is your head in the clouds? It should be. If you are a school administrator or a board member, you may have never heard or thought about “cloud” technology. I mentioned the word the other day in an e-mail and was surprised to hear back that it meant nothing to the recipients. I would respond ...
Planning for accreditation can be an incredibly busy time for any district. Our plates are all full, as the tired saying reminds us, but we needed to collaborate on this extremely important sign and seal of our district work. And as with all things in a school district, working with adults is an excellent opportunity ...
If you’re like me, you’ve attended your fair share of meetings (staff meetings, board meetings, cabinet meetings…you name it.) Most of these meetings have had an agenda but many agendas were just SKELETONS, or basic outlines of the topics that will be presented, discussed or acted upon. So as we’ve had access to technology tools, ...
At the eBOARDsolutions User Conference in March 2011, I co-presented with Dr. Valery Hall of the Forsyth County Public Schools in Georgia. In her role of assisting both the superintendent and the board of education, Valery is integrally involved in preparing the agendas for their board’s meetings. Thus, our session involved agenda preparation and effective ...
Over the last two decades I’ve worked with school systems (both administrators and teachers) helping them to more effectively use technology. In most of these cases, this has been in the service of a technology company such as Apple, Promethean or eBOARDsolutions. According to this Edupotia article “Shaping Tech for the Classroom” by Mark Prensky ...
Let’s face it. Not all board members are tech savvy. But more and more, it is so important that leadership can use technology to access important information (such as online meeting agendas, policies as well as news, registering for conferences…the list is endless). But what about the board members who’ve been led to the water ...
Over the last few years, I asked many people from school districts this question, “Are your board meetings and policies online?” And I’ve been pretty content to hear the answer has most often been “Yes, they are.” “Great!” I think (until I go look on their website). In most cases, I’m finding a few PDF files ...
Additional contribution by Bill Sampson We’ve compiled our top 10 Do’s and Don’ts for Evaluating Your Superintendent. Here goes. 1. Do create and approve the evaluation instrument ahead of time. Your superintendent should know BEFORE the evaluation period exactly what he/she is going to be evaluated on! 2. Do use templates to develop your evaluation ...
With the demands and complexities of public school systems in the 21st century, it is hard to imagine how school districts can continue raising the bar without effective and comprehensive strategic planning. As I talk with people about strategic planning, I typically see people fall into one of two camps. Those who love it and ...
Video of Keith Ellenburg- Technology Director, Putnam County Schools Once upon a time, a board member looked around after a board meeting at all of the packets of paper in the board room and exclaimed aloud, “I wonder how many trees we’ve killed this year. We should be using technology to go paperless! They did ...
With tighter budgets than ever before in education, what do you do when the public questions the work of the board of education? This time of year when it seems like every citizen has something to say about the millage rate of their school system. Well, as board members, it’s imperative that we are transparent ...